Over 120 Palestinians killed in one day of Gaza assaults Hamas military wing al-Qassam Brigades announced, early Monday, that they had killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded another during clashes which took place east of Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip.

According to the Palestinian News Network(PNN), the Brigades issued a brief statement declaring that Israeli forces had attacked Jabalya by land, and that Palestinian resistance fighters responded by firing six mortars at troops, in addition to a number of "light" and "medium" weapons.

Clashes between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Israeli army were still ongoing at the time of PNN's report.

The Middle East Monitor stated that Hamas now counts at least 91 Israeli soldiers who have been killed since the beginning of Israel's latest series of assaults on the Gaza Strip, most of which have been indiscriminate attacks on civilian and municipal structures, in addition to hospitals and UN schools serving as shelters. The victims have included infants, elderly and disabled... entire families.

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers have been injured, as well, according to the Brigades' statement.

Israeli authorities, however, are reporting only 43 soldiers and three civilians killed since July 7. The assault is the third major offensive on Gaza in six years.

PNN additionally reports that the Ministry of Health in Gaza has informed, this afternoon, that over 100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, today, by the Israeli military. Local media asserts that the total number is actually 122, raising the death toll to over 1,200 in just 3 weeks. Local sources say that over 215,000 Palestinians have been displaced as a result of the conflict.

Gaza's hospitals face new crisis As hospitals now face an increasingly dire situation in the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has issued a number of statements in regard, in addition to further addressing the atrocities inflicted upon the people of Gaza by Israel during the holy month of the Ramadan fast. -------------------- Official Press Release 07/29/14

The Ministry of Health Gaza is pained to express its deep sadness and outrage at the Israeli attacks on Gaza on our holy days of Eid al-Fitr.

In the last 24 hours, 120 people have been killed, bringing the total to 1,156.

Particularly distressing was the death in Al Bureij refugee camp of Diana Abu Jaber and her unborn baby only a week before his estimated date of delivery.

Diana’s home was struck by an F-16 airstrike.

“As it collapsed a concrete pillar fell on her,” reported Dr Kamal Khatab, Medical Superintendent of Al Aqsa Hospital. “A shell ripped her abdomen open, the unborn baby fell out and was hit in the head with shrapnel, and his brain matter was extruded. Both mother and baby died immediately.”

Dr Khatab added that Diana, in her mid-twenties, was one of 19 members of the same family to die in that airstrike, and there are still other family members missing.

The entrance to the Outpatient Clinic of Shifa Hospital in Gaza city was shelled yesterday afternoon, bringing the number of attacks on medical facilities to 34. Windows in the Medical Library were shattered, an exterior wall was partially destroyed, and several trees were severely damaged. It is pure good fortune that none of the displaced people sheltering in the outpatients area, or staff working in the library, were killed or injured.

“There is a deliberate strategy of attacking to kill Palestinians in two ways – one in their homes with bombs and bullets, and the other by depriving them of essential medical services,” observed Deputy Minister of Health Dr Yousef Abu Al-Rish.

Israeli airstrikes before dawn on the sole Gaza power plant destroyed fuel tanks, and put the plant out of production. This will have an immense impact on the provision of services in Gaza’s hospitals, and significantly contribute to a looming humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.

Despite numerous appeals by both Palestinian and international organisations to cease attacks on children and women, to cease attacks on medical facilities, and to cease attacks on civilian infrastructure Israeli military strikes on civilian targets have not abated.

The Ministry of Health Gaza calls on the United Nations, the international community, human rights organisations, and all people of good conscience wherever they may be to act immediately to stop the genocide in Gaza.

In the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Press Release 07/29/14 ---------------------------------------------

Gaza Ministry of Health, Palestine

Eid al fitr. The end of Ramadan, the end of the fast. New clothes, lots of sweets, family visits. Celebrations of life and love.

Not in Gaza. Instead, Israelis delivered a hefty dose of death and destruction in al-Shati Camp, splitting families and bodies alike.

Two adults and eight children killed as they rode the Ferris wheel or in a TukTuk in the park, over 40 injured, one of whom has since died.

This barbaric and deliberate attack on children in a public place on one of the two most significant Muslim holy days seals the Israeli reputation as one of the most perverse war criminals imaginable. Many considered the calculated murder of the four children playing football on the beach on July 16, 2014 to be an atrocity and a clear war crime – nine more dead children in al-Shati’s park is an even more gross excess.

And still the international community does nothing.

How many more young lives must be stolen before the world says “Enough!”

How many more before the United Nations (UN) enforces international law without fear or favour, and demands the rogue ‘state’ of Israel comply with international law?

When will the UN impose sanctions, and an arms embargo, to prevent the Israeli enabler, the United States, from furnishing it with the tools of death? From financing the pathological Zionist expansionist project?

When will the UN expel this rogue ‘state’ from amongst its ranks – this rogue ‘state’ that claims all the benefits of UN membership but scorns each and every responsibility incumbent upon it to act with even the barest modicum of civilised behaviour or humanity?

For the United Nations to remain silent now is for it to be complicit in these war crimes.

---------------------------------------- Press Release 07//27/14

Gaza Ministry of Health, Palestine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Gaza’s hospitals confront new crisis
Hospitals in Gaza are confronting a new crisis, as patients ready for
discharge are unable to leave, taking up hospital beds urgently required
for the incoming wounded.

The situation for many of these patients is dire: either their families
have been killed or there is no-one to care for them, their homes have
been destroyed, or they live in areas under Israeli orders to evacuate
and are under threat of being shot if they return.

Several attacks on UNRWA schools serving as shelters for displaced
persons have left these already traumatised and still-vulnerable victims
too distrustful to accept them as a discharge option. In addition, the
over-crowded and under-resourced conditions in the shelters are an
unsuitable environment for the recuperating injured, with limited water,
hygiene and electricity supplies.
Scores of such patients are in Shifa Hospital alone, and because of the
specialist services it offers, they come from all governates in the Gaza
Strip.

“From the human point of view we can’t force them out,” said Chief
Surgeon and Medical Director of Shifa Hospital Dr Sobhi Skaik. “A
patient is not just a medical problem, their social and economic aspects
are also important. The medical staff are always trying to work with
the patients to find solutions.”

Dr Skaik said the situation is complicated by the fact that there are
often several members of the same family hospitalised, with one in the
paediatric ward, one in ICU, another in the orthopaedic ward, another in
neurosurgery, while other family members are camped in the hospital
grounds to be near them or because their homes have been destroyed.

“The hospital grounds have become like a refugee camp,” he said. “The
conditions are deteriorating, with rubbish piling up – it is quite dirty
and unsanitary, and we cannot discharge our patients into those
conditions.”

The Ministry of Health Gaza considers that the minimal requirements for
displaced patients ready for discharge are facilities that have beds
with bedcovers, water for washing, adequate toilet facilities, and food
and drink. They should also be maintained to a standard of cleanliness
conducive to wound healing and infection control.

The Ministry of Health Gaza calls on UNRWA and the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to immediately ensure the provision of
dedicated and adequately-resourced “Recovery Centres” that meet the
above criteria, where displaced patients ready for discharge from Gaza’s
hospitals can continue to recuperate from their injuries in a safe and
sanitary environment, thus releasing their hospital beds for more urgent
cases.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health on Tuesday afternoon said that more than 100 Palestinians had been killed in the Israeli bombardment on Tuesday morning alone, bringing the total past 1,200 as hundreds of thousands fled their homes across the Strip.

Earlier statements from the ministry had given the number of dead at around 57 for the morning, but after consultation with hospitals across the Strip the total was revised to more than 106 dead and hundreds more injured over the course of 14 hours.

Since then, at least 19 more have died in Israeli attacks.

In the most recent attack, three Palestinians were killed and 10 were injured in an Israeli airstrike on Bani Suheila east of Khan Younis.

The three were identified as Muhannad al-Farra, Ahmad Shawqi Abu Hammad, and Ahmad Ismail Abu Hammad.

The Ministry of Health also said that as of Monday night nearly 5,000 homes had been completely destroyed, while tens of thousands more had been partially destroyed.

The United Nations, meanwhile, estimated that more than 215,000 Gazans had fled their home, or more than 10 percent of the besieged coastal enclave's total population.

Late Monday, Israeli authorities had given 400,000 Gazans evacuation orders, but with all the borders closed and the Israeli bombardment and ground invasion continuing in the northern, central, and southern Gaza Strip, the vast majority had nowhere to go except UN shelters.

Last week, however, Israeli shelling hit at least four UN-designated shelters, killing more than 20 and injuring hundreds.

The violence followed a relatively quiet weekend in which more than 100 bodies were found in Gaza rubble but Israeli shelling killed only a handful of Palestinians, drawing increasingly urgent international demands for an end to the fighting.

"In the name of humanity, the violence must stop," pleaded UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

But the calls appeared to be falling on deaf ears, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning Monday it would be "a lengthy campaign" that would not end before troops destroyed cross-border tunnels used for staging attacks on southern Israel.

"Israeli citizens cannot live with the threat from rockets and from death tunnels -- death from above and from below," he said.

On the ground, hundreds of Palestinians could be seen leaving their homes after the army warned residents of five areas to flee and take refugee in central Gaza City, an AFP correspondent said.

New Gaza exodus

Many headed for already-cramped UN schools in the north, where children ran barefoot around a dirty school yard alongside stinking piles of rubbish.

"We came yesterday after the army warned us to leave," said 46-year-old Ghassan Abed who fled from his home in the northern town of Beit Lahiya with his wife and six children.

"About 200 people just from our street have fled," he said.

UN statistics published Monday showed 215,000 Palestinians had already fled their homes, with 170,461 staying in 82 of the agency's schools.

On Tuesday, several tank shells struck Gaza's sole power plant, causing damage and a fire, bringing it grinding to a halt, a senior official with the power authority said.

Another air strike targeted the home of top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza City's Shati refugee camp, officials said.

A deceptive calm

Tensions rose sharply on Monday after a
shell landed inside the Shifa hospital compound in Gaza City, followed
by a blast at a children's playground in the city's al-Shati refugee
camp, that killed 10, eight of them children.

Residents in
al-Shati said an F-16 fired several missiles at a motorized rickshaw in a
claim denied by the Israeli army, which also said it had not targeted
the hospital.

Shortly afterwards, a mortar killed four soldiers
near a kibbutz in southern Israel, the army said, indicating another
soldier had been killed in action in southern Gaza.

As the
violence soared, top diplomats from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and
the United States pledged to "redouble their efforts" and step up the
pressure to persuade the sides to accept a truce.

And Palestinian
president Mahmoud Abbas was expected to visit Cairo with
representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant group, for
fresh talks with the Egyptians on ending the violence in Gaza, a senior
source in Ramallah told AFP, without saying when.

Ministry of
Health Spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra provided a continuing toll of the
deaths and injuries across the Gaza Strip Tuesday.

The deaths and injuries are provided here in chronological order, starting with the most recent.

At
least 14 Palestinians were killed and dozens were injured as Israeli
forces shelled Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

Two Palestinians were killed in an airstrike on Tuesday targeting eastern Rafah.

The
dead were named as Ayman Qishta and Ismail Shahin, and they were killed
when Israeli warplanes targeted a group of people in eastern Rafah, and
four others were injured in an airstrike at Jabaliya.

The shelling also killed Marwa Jamil Shaker al-Agha and her son Nidal Majdi al-Agha, 17.

Ahmad Hassan al-Agha, 55, was also killed in the attack, along with Nariman Khalil al-Agha, 39, and Saddam Majdi al-Agha.

Over 1,210 Palestinians have been killed during the Israeli offensive, with rights groups estimating that around 80 percent of those dead have been civilians.

A statement released by the Ministry of Health Monday said that 52 families had been targeted by Israeli forces and that the attacks had killed 285 members of those families since the beginning of the offensive.

Over 120 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes on Tuesday as leaders on both sides debated a proposed humanitarian ceasefire.

In the latest attack, two Palestinians were killed and three were injured in an Israeli airstrike on northern Rafah.

Additionally, the bodies of four Palestinians were recovered from rubble late Tuesday from earlier attacks on Rafah, health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said.

A top PLO official, meanwhile, said that Palestinian factions in Gaza had agreed to a day-long humanitarian truce.

Yasser Abed Rabbo announced that after consultations with Hamas and Islamic Jihad there was "willingness for a ceasefire and humanitarian truce for 24 hours."

A joint delegation headed by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas would travel to Cairo to take the next step, he added.

"This is more proof that we have a unified Palestinian stand," Abed Rabbo told reporters. "The delegation will head to Cairo under the PLO umbrella represented by President Mahmoud Abbas."

A Hamas spokesman quickly denied Hamas had agreed to the proposal.

"When we have an Israeli commitment ... on a humanitarian truce, we will look into it but we will never declare a truce from our side while the occupation keeps killing our children," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zukhri said on his Facebook page.

Abed Rabbo later insisted that Hamas was open to the idea, saying that the announcement had been made with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal's approval.

Israeli media quoted officials as saying there was agreement among officials, but later the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that two officials had denied a ceasefire had been agreed upon.

The Israeli government remained silent on the subject while continuing its bombardment.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked for fresh help from America in trying to broker a ceasefire.

"Last night we talked, and the prime minister talked to me about an idea and a possibility of a ceasefire. He raised it with me, as he has consistently," said Kerry.

The top US diplomat added that Netanyahu had said he "would embrace a ceasefire that permits Israel to protect itself against (Palestinian militants') tunnels and obviously not be disadvantaged for the great sacrifice they have made thus far."

There was no Israeli government comment.

A series of ceasefires in recent days have failed to take hold, as both sides appeared more determined than ever to keep up the fighting.

The Israeli offensive, which began on July 8, has killed more than 1,210 Palestinians, mostly civilians according to the United Nations, and injured over 7,000.

Fifty-six lives have been lost on the Israeli side, all but three of them soldiers.

Demands for end to hostilities

The World Health Organization now estimates that more than 215,000 people, or one out of eight Gazans, have fled their homes in the overcrowded territory.

Many have headed for already-cramped UN schools in the north, where children ran barefoot around a dirty school yard alongside stinking piles of rubbish.

The surge in violence drew increasingly urgent international demands for an end to hostilities.

"In the name of humanity, the violence must stop," UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on Monday.

But the calls went unheeded, with Netanyahu warning it would be "a lengthy campaign" that would go on until troops destroyed cross-border tunnels used for staging attacks on Israel.

"Israeli citizens cannot live with the threat from rockets and from death tunnels -- death from above and from below," he said.

Two Israeli civilians have been killed by Gaza rocket fire, one of whom was hit while volunteering at an Israeli military base.

But the vast majority of Israeli deaths have been among soldiers, with Gaza militants killing at least 53 since the beginning of Israel's ground offensive on July 17.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked for fresh US help in trying to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, top US diplomat John Kerry said Tuesday.

"Last night we talked, and the prime minister talked to me about an idea and a possibility of a ceasefire. He raised it with me, as he has consistently," Kerry said.

Netanyahu had said he "would embrace a ceasefire that permits Israel to protect itself against the tunnels and obviously not be disadvantaged for the great sacrifice they have made thus far."

The US secretary of state also dismissed a torrent of attacks in the Israeli press since his failed mediation attempt during a week-long Middle East trip last week.

"I've taken hits before in politics, I'm not worried about that. It's not about me -- this is about Israel and Israel's right to defend itself," Kerry insisted after meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.

"I'm not going to worry about personal attacks."

Kerry stressed: "We are working very carefully with our Israeli friends in order to be able to find a way to reduce the civilian loss of life, to prevent this from spiraling downwards into a place from which ... both sides have difficulty finding a way forward."

Israel intensified its Gaza bombardment leaving scores dead Tuesday, the 22nd day of a devastating conflict, as Palestinian leaders said an offer of a day-long truce was on the table.

Kerry said if there was an agreement on serious negotiations about the wider issues both Israel and Hamas want to address, it would happen in Cairo, "it would be entirely without pre-conditions and it would not prejudice Israel's ability to defend itself."

"It is more appropriate to try to resolve the underlying issues at a negotiating table, than to continue a tit-for-tat of violence ... which will be much more difficult to recover from," Kerry said.